On Sunday, Babia, a crocodile living in the lake in the temple, was found dead. (Representative)
Kasaragod, Kerala:
A decade-old lone crocodile claiming to be vegetarian, which used to live in the lake at Sri Ananthapadmanabha Swamy temple here and was often found roaming inside its premises, was found dead late Sunday night.
Temple officials told PTI that the crocodile affectionately named Babia was missing since Saturday. After this, the body was found floating on the lake at around 11.30 pm on Sunday night and the information was given to the police and animal husbandry department, temple officials said.
The carcass was removed from the lake and put on public display after hundreds of people, including politicians, turned up for the last glimpse of the crocodile on Monday.
Temple officials claimed that the crocodile was a vegetarian who depended on the ‘prasadam’ made there.
Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shobha Karandlaje said she hoped that “God’s own crocodile”, which has lived in the temple for more than 70 years, attains ‘sadgati’ or salvation.
“The Lord’s own crocodile Babia Vishnu Padam of Sri Ananthapura Lake Temple has reached Padam. The divine crocodile lived in the temple lake for more than 70 years by eating Sri Ananthapadmanabha Swamy’s rice and jaggery prasad and protected the temple. May he attain salvation, Om Shanti!,” she tweeted.
BJP state president K Surendran also paid tribute to the crocodile in a Facebook post. “Babia is gone. For decades, Kumbla was a constant presence at the Ananthapuram Mahavishnu temple. Lakhs of devotees visited it considering it as an image of the Lord. Pranams,” he said.
Temple officials said the crocodile’s carcass would be buried in a nearby pit before noon on Monday.
The Mahavishnu Temple is located at Ananthapura near Kumbla in the northern Kerala district of Kasaragod. According to its website, the temple is known as ‘Moolasthanam’, the original source of the Sri Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram.
The temple website also claims that a “very unusual phenomenon” was the presence of a crocodile named ‘Babiya’ in the temple lake.
“According to tradition, only one crocodile lives in the lake and in memory of very old men the present crocodile is the third one they have seen. When one crocodile dies another inevitably appears in the lake and it continues to be one. Unexplained incident,” the website said.
It further states, “Where crocodiles are present, there is no river or pond nearby. The crocodile is friendly and harmless to humans. Its presence in the lake surrounding the Mahavishnu temple is one of the famous Gajendra Moksha stories in the Bhagavata Purana. Reminds me.” ,
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)